Short summary : the next iteration of the tournament tweaks has some buff planned for some salamanders units, including at least the Clan lord (with or without the drake mount) and the kaisenor lancers

Short summary : the next iteration of the tournament tweaks has some buff planned for some salamanders units, including at least the Clan lord (with or without the drake mount) and the kaisenor lancers

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I'm quite surprised that the Clan Lord and Kaisenors have been singled out for buffing? Out of all the units I've tested out, and read about in batreps, those aren't the ones that have seemed the most underwhelming. Admittedly Lancers suffer from a lack of fast chaff to screen them, but allies can fill that gap. And the CLoWFD has done stellar work for me in pretty much every game.

I would have thought the more obvious choices would have been Ember Sprites (which I can't find any redeeming feature for), Hunters (which although useful still don't really justify their cost), Ankylodon (a unit which to me seems fundamentally flawed in its conception) and Komodon (which is 4th worst damage per 100pts of all twenty four 36"+ war machines across all opponent Def values - and those that are worse than the Komodon at De6+ are considerably better than the Komodon at De3+ and vice versa, so they can at least be considered good at something)?

I'm quite surprised that the Clan Lord and Kaisenors have been singled out for buffing? Out of all the units I've tested out, and read about in batreps, those aren't the ones that have seemed the most underwhelming. Admittedly Lancers suffer from a lack of fast chaff to screen them, but allies can fill that gap. And the CLoWFD has done stellar work for me in pretty much every game.

I would have thought the more obvious choices would have been Ember Sprites (which I can't find any redeeming feature for), Hunters (which although useful still don't really justify their cost), Ankylodon (a unit which to me seems fundamentally flawed in its conception) and Komodon (which is 4th worst damage per 100pts of all twenty four 36"+ war machines across all opponent Def values - and those that are worse than the Komodon at De6+ are considerably better than the Komodon at De3+ and vice versa, so they can at least be considered good at something)?

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Well, im hoping that isn't ALL they are buffing, as you are right on all accounts. The clan lord and kaisenors however are overpriced. The fire drake lord has been good because its simply a fly 10 dragon. I do think it suffers from being priced with a breath 16 weapon, which is a nice option but you don't pay 300 points for breath 16. You pay 300 points to threaten flanks and rears, which other dragons simply do better.

I think the salamanders list has a host of issues, with overpriced options being just the start (which does happen to be nearly everything in the list).

All the ghekkotah are bad. Hunters and Skyraiders collection of abilities don't jive, and would need a significant price decrease for them to matter. Both of the irregular options (skyraiders and ember sprites) are pure WTF options, where other lists get straight up power options that are simply cheaper than normal. Flying around blowdarting things sounds ok, but flank charging with elite and CS1 is just better. nevermind 200 points for a DEF +3 unit.

Our regiment options are nil. Everything you can get in a regiment is bad, which makes list building extremely limiting.

Slow, heavy infantry that don't hit very hard for their price just isn't a very good theme. Successful lists all share themes of ranged fire power, chaff, fliers, and/or mobility. Lizards don't have anything that stand out in any of those categories except mage priests that surge stuff for the mobility category.

It would be nice to take the pseudo theme of "heavy infantry + short ranged mobile units" to a competitive level.

Well, im hoping that isn't ALL they are buffing, as you are right on all accounts. The clan lord and kaisenors however are overpriced. The fire drake lord has been good because its simply a fly 10 dragon. I do think it suffers from being priced with a breath 16 weapon, which is a nice option but you don't pay 300 points for breath 16. You pay 300 points to threaten flanks and rears, which other dragons simply do better.

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I've found the breath to be quite useful to be fair. It doesn't really work on the Fire Drake because it's not manoeuvrable enough, but with fly I've been able to bounce around causing all kinds of havoc in the past. I charge him very infrequently (I wouldn't want to risk taking a wound in combat!), but I've held up opponents' units well beyond his points value by putting him in threatening positions and leaving him there. And once he does get a clear jump over he can keep jumping out of the way of any threatening units and breathing fire. If anything I would like to see his points come and melee abilities come down.

And I'm not so sure about the Kaisenors. I've compared them with Elven and Brotherhood cavalry and they do have quite a good price for the power they can lay down...

Our regiment options are nil. Everything you can get in a regiment is bad, which makes list building extremely limiting.

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Agreed on this one as the only regiment I've ever been happy with is my Kaisenors. However, this seems to be common amongst all armies and I think regiments in general need to be re-looked at. In terms of melee units, hordes and legions have the damage output and staying power (which means lack of manoeuvrability is less important) and troops have the manoeuvrability (which allows a good player to increase their damage output as they are more likely to get flank charges). From my limited experience regiments seem to fall between the two stools and end up not being much use in any situation. In terms of ranged units, the regiment option is most often the most expensive out of troops, regiments and hordes when looking at damage output per 100 points, and damage output is pretty much the only benefit that counts for a ranged unit.

It would be nice to take the pseudo theme of "heavy infantry + short ranged mobile units" to a competitive level.

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That would be nice, and that is clearly what the army is aiming to be (hence my first lists tended to lean that way). However, with experience under my belt I've seen the big, firey light and it's Elementals. If some of our breath weapons had piercing, however, it might be a different story.

My understanding was that fury was for some orcs units (probably the gore riders among others) and vicious for some salamanders units (including the kaisenor lancers), but it's perfectly possible that I misunderstood, or that the information that I read was itself wrong.

But fury would seem more appropriate for the orcs, or even for the boars themselves (referencning tales of a wild boar continuing its charge even after mortally wounded, sometimes by simple inertia)

My understanding was that fury was for some orcs units (probably the gore riders among others) and vicious for some salamanders units (including the kaisenor lancers), but it's perfectly possible that I misunderstood, or that the information that I read was itself wrong.

But fury would seem more appropriate for the orcs, or even for the boars themselves (referencning tales of a wild boar continuing its charge even after mortally wounded, sometimes by simple inertia)

Well, we will see when the book will be released at worst.

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If it's vicious for the kaisenor lancers then I can justify using my skink cold one riders again, as they fit the vicious theme.... not that i need motivation anyways

But the relatively small base means it's easily avoidable. Even worse, as mentioned before, the type of units that you would want to be holding up (heros & monsters) have base sizes that allow them to pivot and move out of his front arc even if he's charged them the previous turn.

- 6 New scenarios
- Of the existing Scenarios, Kill and Kill & Pillage are gone.
- One of the new ones is Scour. Same as Pillage, except you can remove an objective that you control at the start of your turn.

- 10-11 new magic items
- One of these is the Lute of Insatiable Darkness. It does something related to making things stronger.
- The Ensorcelled Armour, Brew of Keen-eyeness and Medallion of Life are being removed.

- 3 new spells!
- One is Blood Boil(n). Short Range piercing attack where n = the number of wounds currently on the unit.
- There was a suggestion that one of the existing spells will get tweaked (apparently Bane chant to make it harder to add piercing?), but that might no longer be the case.

- 8 Armies will get erratas to certain units, including Salamanders. To keep things simple none of these involve points changes.

So it seems also that of the five units buffed, three are the clan lord, mounted Lord and Kaisenor Lancers. So that leaves two, guessing the Ankylodon and Komodon.